As the purpose of my shoot was to convey a niche, fantasy story to the local audience, I focused on some key points when choosing the models.
Key points focused:
Models should convey the personality and looks of the characters in the story.
Models should resonate with the audience and did not have to fit the traditional standards of what a model should look like.
Sri Lankan people within the target age group of 16-25 to show what the magazine represents.
They should be of different skin tones and from different cultural backgrounds to fully embrace the local community.
With that I decided to have 3 female models and 1 male model.
I found it fairly easy to find all 3 of the female models who fit the character description amongst my classmates itself. However after agreeing and proceeding to a certain extent with the planning one of the models backed out as she was having issues with her transport. Hence I had to quickly find someone else and conveniently another one of my friends agreed to do the shoot taking her place.
Getting a male model was relatively hard as I couldn’t find anyone who did the character justice. A couple of my friends helped out by putting Instagram stories and tried to find someone through that. They even asked around from their friends if they were willing to do an editorial shoot free of charge. Although we did get a few responses I was not able to find the right fit.
Eventually a mutual friend of mine agreed to do the shoot and conveniently he also fit the character description.
I was finally able to get a cast that satisfied all of my key requirements. These are the finalised set of models who would be doing the editorial shoot with me.
Finalised Cast (models)
Sachin Perera as Cassian
Character description: Cassian is tall with black hair, golden-brown skin and hazel eyes. His features are described as being rough-hewn, as though they’d been made of wind, earth and flame. His body is powerful and muscled. Beneath his roughness and warrior-like nature, he is genuine, playful, perceptive and loyal to a fault.
Dhamsarani Kuruppu as Nesta Archeron
Character description: Nesta is described as being devastatingly beautiful with sharp eyes. She has defined features and a thinner build than both of her sisters. She has impeccable posture and stands very tall. She wears a impenetrable façade over her emotions, stoic, poised, regal and does not need to resort to violence to be intimidating.
Character description: Elain has rich brown eyes and her skin is sun-kissed from the time spent in her garden. She is described as the most beautiful of the 3 sisters. She is gentle, kind and arguably the softest of the sisters.
[Photo taken by Abhishri.]
Abhishri Shankar as Feyre Archeron
Character description: Feyre has a pert, pretty and straight nose, sharp cheekbones and a tanned and freckled skin. She is the high lady of the night court and is driven forward by her compassion, determination and self sacrificing nature. She is also a keen artist.
0 comments